I wouldn't be Deanna Troy for the world

So what if she's pretty, has a cool accent, gets to parade around a spaceship and simply talks to a wall whenever she wants something to eat? She has a crazy mother.

Plus, empathy hurts.

It's a strange phenomenon, that bane of a gift (disclaimer: for the few of you who even know to whom the title refers, i'm not so geeky as to be contemplating her literal "gift" here...just the real-world counterpart). Anyone with strong empathetic tendancies knows of the dichotomous nature of the thing--that strange absorption of thought and feeling that can further help a person to serve well, to pray well, and yet can bring about a wash of heartache as real as if it were originally one's own.

From the Latin, sympathy means "to feel with," but empathy literally means "to feel into." I think that's an accurate distinction...it's one thing to feel sorry for someone for a moment and then go about your way; it's a very different (and much more invested) experience to have an intensely internal perception and appreciation of another's burden, however that happens to come about.

I remember my pastor once saying that empathy generally comes either from a sharing of similar experiences, or from an already-existing closeness between people; and sometimes it's both. I would think everybody experiences it to some degree, but I wonder if God builds a stonger sense of empathy into some people than into others? (that's the thought I come from, if it wasn't obvious...) Is it a personality thing? A spiritual gift? All of the above?

I couldn't wish it away, 'cause as for myself, at least, it's just a part of who I am.

Not that it means I'm so used to it that I always know how to handle it. Have you wept because of what someone was going through? Have you found yourself frustrated because you would comfort, you would offer insight, but the words fail? Have you literally cried prayers because you didn't know what else you could do?

What we're supposed to do with all that, I don't yet know. I'm still waiting for God to show me that one. Along with, oh, most everything else in my life...but who's counting.. :)

I need to go out!!!

As in, outside, as in, into Creation. I'm sitting here at work looking at the ducks play in the lake outside my window, and it just reminds me of all those little road trips to national parks we used to take when I was a kid...I never do anything outside anymore. I'm not even a huge tree-hugging, nature-loving environmentalist, but there is something to be said for spending time away in God's Green Earth, or what's left of it, anyway.

It is my last semester in Buies Creek, and I have never ever been to Raven Rock.

This must be remedied..

the ONLY reason

...i'm doing this is because Shannon essentially asked me to. I resisted until I saw that last line.

Three Names You Go By
1. Melinda
2. Me-linda
3. Vaca

Three Things That Scare You
1. loss of a loved one
2. not being able to support myself after graduation
3. that's about it

Three of Your Everyday Essentials
1. Strawberry Chapstick brand chapstick
2. my planner
3. umm...keys?

Three Things You Are Wearing Right Now
1. my express sports jacket i got for about $20
2. my rings I never take off
3. the grey snowflake slippers my mom gave me

Three of Your Favorite Drinks:
1. milk
2. water
3. SoBe Green Tea

Three of Your Favorite Songs - at the moment
1. um
2. i don't have favorites right now
3. why do i suddently feel like less of person?

Three Things You Want in a Relationship (other than Real Love)
1. strength
2. to be challenged
3. trust

Two Truths and a Lie
1. I never finished 6th grade
2. I make friends easily
3. I can't wait til I have my own family

Three of Your Favorite Hobbies
1. reading
2. watching random sci fi
3. music-ing

Three Things You want to do really badly right now
1. watch firefly
2. find a job
3. fall in love

Three Places You Want to go on Vacation
1. Italia!!
2. España
3. Costa Rica

Three Things You Want to Do Before You Die
1. Go back to Costa Rica
2. travel Europe
3. finish a song

Three Ways that you are stereotypically a Chick/Guy
1. I take forever to get ready (even more than the "normal" forever)
2. I buy jewelry and then never wear it
3. I am overly sentimental

Three people I would like to see take this quiz
1. Rick (because he is the King of Random)
2. David (because that is something he will never do)
3. Rachael (because she is about the funniest girl I know...and probably the Queen of Random)

my former life

So, I really miss playing m' 'cello. I need to make time to do this.

Short-term speaking, i miss playing, period. Long-term, I miss my classical days...when my fingers were actually strong and my sightreading was more than decent and I didn't get tired after 5 minutes.

Strange how I seem to have traded one skill set for another...I can't physically do nearly as much as I used to be able to do, but I can play by ear a WHOLE lot better than I used to be able to do. Which was pretty much not at all.

I don't regret moving away from classical, though. A skill lost can be regained, but a skill never gained to start with is never going to do you any good, period.

Practice: just another thing to add to my post-grad to-do list.

This nostalgia was brought to you by the never-ending process of uploading music to the iPod, i.e. an excerpt from the 2001 North Carolina Eastern Regional All State Honors Symphony Orchestra. If that doesn't sound pretentious enough, this piece is called "Symphonie Fantastique, 4th Movement: March of the Scaffold," by Hector Berlioz.

Probably one of my 3 favorite classical music experiences ever.

The cellos rock this piece up. :)

i LOVE

the rain! Not so much when I have to go somewhere and would rather stay looking presentable rather than like a wet rag doll, but when my time is mine, there's nothing like a good thunderstorm.

Another thing I love, and of which last night reminded me: DANCE. Not anything of the "dancing" that went on at "Overtime" last night--I mean, real dancing, the kind that has steps you have to be taught. And I'm not talking ballet here, as fun and as good for you as that is--because no matter how hard I worked at that, there was no way I could actually be legitimately good at it. No, I'm talking SALSA. And merengue, cumbia, tango--I'd love to learn to tango--but salsa is just about the most phsyically fun thing I have ever done, aside from skiing.

An Alaskan friend of mine (we took lessons together in Costa Rica) recently asked me if I'd found a place to dance around here, and OH that I could....Not that I've really tried, but that's because I'm a timid dork. I can't bring myself to just show up at some strange salsa salon alone, and alas, I know zero guys who could lead that I could drag with me. (So if anyone knows a guy who likes a good salsa and I don't mean the food, hook a girl up, yo.)

I watched a documentary about ballroom dancing with my mom over break and I swear I was seat-dancing and shrieking with envy the whole time....i MISS THIS STUFF. One of the best nights I've ever had: going with a group of Ticos to El Tobogán, one of the biggest dance salons in Costa Rica.........ohhhh, to do that again....

Now that you all probably think I'm a nutso giddy dance snob, I just have to say: you don't understand--if you at all like to shake ya bum, you have GOT to try this!!!!!! (And bring me with you!)

OH MY GOSH I LOVE THIS JOB

To bad it's not a real, paying job that I can keep once I've graduated. Unless I can convince them otherwise... ;)

So far I've been doing a lot of translating documents for the PR dept. But apparently...TWR is in dire need of a better way to get information from the latin offices regarding program results, evaluations, needs, etc. (because the Spanish dpt. staff doesn't have the time to adequately gather this info)...and so, that's what I'll be doing in the future, at some point. Yes, I'm pretty much terrified of the conference calls I'll be having with native Spanish speakers, but hopefully they'll let me work up to that point. :)

I joined the Spanish department meeting today, which they decided to start holding all in Spanish. I haven't been around conversation like that in 6 months, so I felt like a dummy but it was good for me :)

The people I've met so far are wonderful. I went to lunch with the magazine/web editor (who happens to be a former Campbell PR intern) and her husband the IT guy...muy divertido. And my boss is great--funny, and somebody someone my age can actually relate to easily--he was asking me about OLF and if I've ever been to the bluegrass barn, haha. And it's such a small world...I swear everyone I've met is somehow connected to Campbell, Grace, or Fuquay-Varina.


God is good. This is unreal.

*internal freak-out*

...the GOOD kind!!

It's lunchtime of Day One at my internship at TransWorldRadio in Cary, and I am so excited I can hardly contain myself. To start, I am currently sitting in my own office with a window-wall that overlooks a lake (don't get jealous; I'm sure that once I graduate I'll join the cube-dwelling ranks soon enough).

But on to the actually important stuff--it's very apparent that the people here are quite as serious and as intent upon taking advantage of this arrangement as I am. When I got here this morning, the heads of the PR and Spanish departments, as well as the woman in charge for a particular women's ministry, were in a meeting discussing how they thought my skills can meet their needs--and not photocopying, mail-running, data-entering needs (you know, from the typical worthless internship stories). Nope, this is more like translating projects, writing news releases in both languages, developing original book material in Spanish, and even the potential of starting and developing a bilingual TWR newsletter for the Americas.

As I've been sitting here translating a proposal to create a women's ministry website from one of the South American offices, I've been trying to supress continual fits of laughter...It is ridiculously gratifying to actually be using my Spanish for something real...

True to my instinct, in the back of my mind I keep telling myself not to get too excited, that the novelty will wear off and soon I'll be wondering what I'm doing here...but honestly, I don't think that's going to happen, at least with the wondering part. And regardless, if today is any indication, I think this is going to be an incredibly beneficial experience, and I'm going to enjoy it as much as I can...

Redeeming Love

I just read a book by this title that was, simply put, disarmingly moving. I started it last night and couldn't put it down until I finished it at 5:30 this morning, something my eyelids have never allowed me to do before. It's essentially a very long parable, based on the story of Hosea, that delves into the depths of the Father's love..."How Deep the Father's Love For Us" is this book, at least for me.

It's one of those books that is not about to leave your brain just because you got to last page...it's giving me a lot to feel and think on. I would say it's also given me a lot to be reminded of, except that in spite of what I've grown up hearing and even experiencing, I'm not sure I've ever seen it/felt it quite in this vein before.

Here's to getting closer to understanding and embracing what the Father offers..

And so the bells begin.

Wedding bells, of course. Friday night I just went to my first "real" wedding ('real' meaning it wasn't for a distant relative, a friend that I'm only slightly aquainted with, or simply a wedding I was hired to play at).

Friday night marked the first in what I have been assured (by my father?...) will be a torrent of weddings I will be attending in the next five years. Yeah, I know supposedly I'm at that "age" when many peers will be tying the knot; several of my friends go to at least half a dozen weddings every summer, it seems. But honestly, at least in the next couple years, I don't know of very many I'll be attending, though of course even a year can bring change to that.

Interruption from iPod: I came here with a load, and it seems so much lighter now I met you...and honey you should know, I could never go on without you.

Yes, my hopes exactly--perfect timing. :P

My views on the appropriate age of marriage have certainly changed in the last few years. I used to think that anyone who got married right out of college was being entirely ridiculous and immature, and then I eventually made my way to thinking that it's not such a bad idea after all. Although that later opinion probably came from getting older and closer to the end of college and recognizing the desireability of having someone by your side to cushion the blows of a transition to "the real world." And anyway, they do say that the more successful marriages are the ones that were entered into closer to 30 years of age than 20, though there are many personal factors to be considered besides age, obviously. Though little of this matters much to me at this point, given that if I met someone tomorrow it'd still be a number of years before I got there anyway.

So what do YOU think? Given the fact that most people who read this go to Campbell i.e. home-of-many-young-marriages, I know there must be some interesting opinions out there. ;)